Titan: The Dark Path

Titan

The indomitable shadow pressed down with all of its weight on its blade. Evil came on with thousands of years of malevolent purpose in every step. Each strike meant to crush. Each strike meant to kill. The road was a mess of broken gravel and dirt where the dark hearted blade had carved the street open with ease.

Titan burned down the Dark Men between him and Kate with desperate, quick speed. Their opaque shadow matter hands fizzled as they groped for her, mewling. The stink of burning rubber filled her nostrils yet again on this night that refused to end.

"You're on your own for a while," Titan said to Kate. Then he turned to face the looming shadow with the big sword. He considered how to get past its hard death blade and long reach and get close to the malevolent giant. The options were few.

"Is that how Superman talks to Lois?" Kate said. She couldn't say what she really needed to say.

"He's faster, stronger, and luckier," Titan called back. Evil stepped close. The ground trembled. Titan lifted his sword to ward Evil back, but Evil wouldn't let him stand between it and thousands of years of purpose.

"I know what you're going to have to do and I understand," Kate said. Truth still unspoken. She backed away.

Titan knew. He threw her a look and held up a clenched fist. "Get out of here, Kate. I'm going to do the right thing. For once."

"There is no winning," Evil said and then landed a blow where Titan had stood an instant before. The road exploded in a spray of gravel and dirt.

The giant shadow stalked him without and within. The fear in Titan's heart betrayed him. Evil's smoky, black flesh was not bound by this universe's laws of matter and physics. In this world, the giant's great size revealed lithe movement and quickness that Titan did not expect. Attack threatened to come at any moment. Evil's great reach was ever-present.

"There is only die now or delay death."

Titan rolled to his feet and carved room with his sword. His godsword left a halo in the air with his deft swipe. Evil granted little quarter.

Across the street, Dark Men climbed out of the alleyways and passages. They drove the scared and wounded out of their hiding places and into the open street where more of their brethren were lying in wait. Remnants of the mob, those who weren't vaporized by Evil's fireball, shot at them with rifles and shotguns or attacked with clubs, but their weapons went through the beings as though they were, well, shadows.

Kate picked up a sputtering torch off of the street. She wiped the sweat out of her eyes. It could not have been tears; the crying was done. She jogged at first and then broke into a full-out sprint. Her torch drank from the wind hungrily and brightened so her face was alive with flame. She threw herself between the mob of screaming people and the howling shadows. Kate used her torch as a cudgel because that's how she felt and she wanted to hit things.

She lit fire to shadow wherever she met them. Their lightless skin ignited and burned away in the night air. Some shadows were cowards and they reached for their brethren so that when torch touched to black, their obsidian flesh went up together like tissue paper and burned away in a chain of fire.

The Dark Men knew her blood would break the wall between worlds. Whether Evil took her itself or not, its creatures could deliver her. They sought her out. They flew at Kate with grating screeches that beat on the cold night's wind. Kate was done running. She met them with fire and force. A halo of orange fire drove them back. A dark hand closed on her wrist and pulled her forward. Her arm became burned with a flash freeze in an instant. She pressed the torch to the shadow's hand as it burned away and flames licked her flesh. The cold turned to hot and her arm turned pink and then blistered red. Kate bit her lip hard enough to draw blood and then screamed. She tasted salt and copper and felt wetness dribble down her chin. Pain blossomed along her arm beyond where the flames had tasted flesh.